A new class-action lawsuit accuses a big job-placement agency of discriminating against blacks job-seekers — in favor of Hispanics.

The NYT reports.

Kevin James, 29, one of the named plaintiffs in the suit, said he had applied for work through MVP on roughly 20 occasions but had been given a job only once. He sat in the MVP office waiting in vain while Hispanic applicants got assignments, he said.

On the one occasion when Mr. James was given a job, he said, he was sent to a packaging company where supervisors were hostile toward him, “hovering” over him and other black employees as they worked.

“It just seemed like a lot of tension, like they didn’t really want me to be there,” Mr. James said. He added that the staff of the MVP office in Cicero “was mainly Mexicans” and that the employees were not welcoming toward African-American job seekers. “I’d say the whole staff was Mexican,” he said. “It was like the whole thing was built up mainly around Hispanics."

There is evidence that MVP used the code words "guapo" — handsome — and "feo" — ugly:

"They said African-Americans wanted to keep their hands clean and not get dirty and not work as hard as a Mexican — that’s why they called them guapos,” [said Rosa Ceja, 29, a former dispatcher at MVP’s office in Elmwood Park, Ill.]. MVP employees were told that using the words “black” or “Mexican” instead of the code words, especially in an email, was a fireable offense....

The vast majority of Hispanic job applicants served by MVP were in the United States illegally, Ms. Ceja added, and their vulnerability made them attractive short-term workers. “That makes it harder for them to complain or do anything,” she said. “They are so scared to raise their voice and say, ‘Hey, this is not fair.’”

More at the link.